On February 2nd the first map pack for Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 came out on the Playstation 4. It consists of four multiplayer map packs named Splash, Gauntlet, Rise, and Skyjacked and it also comes with a new Zombies map named Der Eisendrache. This time around the DLC will be coming to the Playstation 4 a whole 30 days before it drops on the Xbox One. I took a look at the different maps and played around with the new zombies mode, to let you know what I think.

First I will start off by saying that I was not a huge fan of Black Ops 3. This is kind of a hard thing to say, because Treyarch has been my favorite COD developer since Call of Duty 3. That was, after all, the game that got me bought in to the whole World War 2 shooter scene.  I never could get into the Medal of Honor series or COD 1 and 2, and its kind of a strange thing that actually made me like part 3. Believe it or not it was the AI and how it created a cinematic feeling for the game. I had been having a tough time getting through a certain stage and I was about to die, so I dropped into a prone position in a crater on the battlefield. As I was laying there waiting for my health to regenerate a Nazi ran up and took aim at me. If I had taken one more shot I would have been a goner, but my brothers in arms came to my rescue. Another soldier came running up and shot the Nazi dead, protecting me and letting me live on to win the war for the Allies. This was the first time, in a game, that the other AI characters actually made a difference. Up until this point everyone else in a gun fight was just there for show. You were the only one that was actually killing anything in a game. The fact that I was saved, by an unscripted event in a video game, forever changed what I expected out of a game. It was at that moment Treyarch became the lead COD developer in my eyes, not Infinity Ward. That’s why it pains me so much, to say that BO3 was a let down in my eyes.

Black Ops 3 was a let down in my eyes, not because of any technical deficiencies, but because Treyarch failed to move the series forward in any meaningful way and chose to scale back things that Sledgehammer had done with the multiplayer. Sure they kept similar mobility styles as Advanced Warfare, but they tacked on limitations to the gameplay that just didn’t make sense. Like the decision to not embrace the verticality that the jump pack allows the player. Sledgehammer designed their stages around this ability and it created a new aspect of the the series where you never knew what vertical level your enemy was going to be on. It completely annoyed me when Treyarch decided to not keep this a priority and put up invisible walls around objects that you should have been able to jump on top of. Nothing makes you feel less like a badass when you go to jump on something to get a tactical advantage and you wind up jumping into a wall. I had hoped that with the first map pack Treyarch would have updated their thinking and planned for the actual abilities they imbued their players with. I couldn’t have been more wrong in that thought.

Splash is a stage that is inspired by one of my most favorite things in the physical world, a water park. Everything that you would expect to be there is accounted for, the lazy river, big water slides, and a wave pool. Unfortunately this is my least favorite map in the new pack. The number of times that I felt I should have been able to jump over an object or over an area of the map, only to run face first into an invisible wall, was countless. Even small buildings in the environment, like a thatched hut prevents you from being able to move around like you want to. Seeing that Call of Duty has put aside the sense of realism that its competitors put in their games, it would have been nice if you could slide twice as far as you normally do, when you are in the water.

Gauntlet is a really neat idea in concept, since its supposed to be a training facility for the new Black Ops agents. It consists of three different biomes, forest, snowy mountain, and inner city. Each area is pretty small, but the forest area is the most interesting. The did a good job at making that area feel like an actual forest, but the other areas are much to small for you to actually feel like you are in a different place. The snowy mountains suffer the same fate as Splash, meaning that there are parts that you should be able to jump onto but can’t. The urban area consists of a bunch of narrow spaces that would be ideal for wall running. The only problem here is that the area is so small that once you get up to speed you are already out of the area that you want to be in. There are a lot of nice details in this stage though, like the different armor sets for the specialists that you choose from in the multiplayer mode.

Rise actually turned out to be my favorite map, despite it being the most obvious setting. It’s basically a construction site, there is at least one in every COD game, but there is a fair amount of diversity in the map. Two of the four maps have water that you can swim in, but this one has enough to actually make a gameplay difference. It has a well rounded design that allows for quick traversing from one side to another. There are quite a bit of options in the vertical persuasion, which allows you to mix up your game plan on the fly. I think that this map fits all the different game modes that you will play on it the best, because of it’s diversity.

Skyjacked is a remake of everyone’s favorite Black Ops 2 map Hijaked. This time it’s not a stolen yacht, but a flying ship. Treyarch actually put some thought into the jump packs by adding a hole in the side of the ship, so that you can boost in onto a lower level. When I first saw that they remade this level I was quite excited, since I loved this stage in Black Ops 2. The main problem is I probably played it non-stop for the first 10-15 games. After that I didn’t feel quite the same sense of nostalgia for the stage. Bad taste aside, it is still a well balanced stage that allows battle of different levels and it doesn’t feel different, despite the new abilities the player has at their command.

I must admit that the only zombie mode I ever put any real time into was on World at War. It’s difficult for me to get a group of people together in order to tackle such a time consuming mode. That’s not to say I didn’t get the different zombie modes in Black Ops 2. I just never spent a large amount of time on them. I think Der Eisendrache will be the same experience. While it is fun to try and tackle by yourself or with another person, there is no way for you to complete this mode alone. I understand the draw for people to this mode, if you have friends to play with, but it’s not something that I would consider to be a main draw of a DLC pack. The setting is cool and it is the classic zombie mode, but the new addition of Gobblegum offers up enough random strategy to keep you coming back for more.

For me, the gameplay didn’t evolve enough for me to give a damn. I was really hoping that the new maps would allow for a greater range of movement and make the game that much better. It seems that Treyarch has a certain vision in mind, if that vision appeals to you then I am sure that you will totally love these new maps. It just wasn’t enough for me to care enough for what thy were going for. Unfortunately I got the season pass for the game. There is a chance that the future maps will hold a bit more evolution, but I’m not holding my breath.